After years of building a local following, Beach Haus Brewery has opened the doors of its production facility, tasting room and retail shop on Main Street in Belmar.

In celebration of this momentous occasion for Garden State beer lovers, company president and co-founder John Merklin of Brick gave us the inside scoop on everything you need to know about Beach Haus.

It was a long time coming

Originally based in Point Pleasant Beach, the company was founded as the East Coast Beer Co., commercially releasing its first beer in 2010.

Before the Belmar facility, and the re-branding as Beach Haus Brewery, the company operated as a contract brewer, having its beers brewed at North American Breweries in Rochester, New York, home of Genesee Beer.

"We would bring our recipes to them, and they would manufacture the beer up at their facility," Merklin recalled. "Then, we would bottle it and have it kegged there as well and ship it down. It's a great way to get started, but there are a lot of parts to that type of model and a lot of handcuffs, if you will, to the business. It's very expensive. You don't have control of production, you don't have control of quality. Not that we had issues with that, but our ambition was always a brewery of our own."

Beach Haus began work on its Belmar Facility in February 2014, and is now home to 30-barrel brew house with custom-made equipment by the Wisconsin-based W.M. Sprinkman Corporation, able to turn out around 30,000 barrels of Jersey fresh beer a year.

The company has seven employees and its beer is available across the state as well as in parts of New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Delaware and Maryland.

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Beach Haus Brewery in Belmar has a yearly capacity of almost 1 million gallons of beer per year.
STAFF VIDEO BY BOB BIELK

Tapping into local tradition

Beach Haus made its Belmar home at the former site of Freedman's Bakery, which closed its doors in February and had been a downtown Belmar destination since 1950.

"We gave it a couple of days, and then we immediately commenced construction," Merklin said. "And really, when I say 'construction,' the first thing we had to do was tear away some of it. Going from a bakery to a brewery was natural in so many ways: this was an existing production facility with a lot of steel, it was used to handling lots of equipment, from a logistical point of view it had loading docks and bays ready to go.

"But, the fact is it's just not a cookie-cutter transition. So we began work rearranging some the steel, raising some ceilings, lowering others, removing some walls. But we were always very mindful and wanted to keep as much of the building's history as possible."

At Beach Haus, Merklin pointed out, the tables and the bar top in the tap room are made from reclaimed Freedman's wood, as is the furniture in the retail store.

"Freedman's was a huge part of the history of this area. It was important to a lot of folks. It was very important to the Freedman family as well, and it was always our intention to preserve as much of that as we could while we built our brewery," Merklin said.

The company also honors the history of the site in one of its beers, the American wheat beer known as Herb's Rye.

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Some of the beers available at the Beach Haus Brewery in Belmar.(Photo: Bob Bielk/Staff photographer)

The brew is described by Merklin as "our playful tribute" to Herb Freedman, the former owner and founder of Freedman's Bakery.

"He was known for his rye bread, and he was known all over the area, so we wanted to make a beer and call it Herb's Rye," Merklin explained. "It's actually a wheat beer made with rye malts, which gives it a very fresh, interesting taste to it. A lot of folks who enjoy this style are picking up something a little different, something they can definitely appreciate."

Word has it that Freedman happens to be a big fan of wheat beers, as well.

"Which makes all of the sense in the world," Merklin said. "It's liquid bread, after all."

Keeping it casual

Appropriate for a brewery located in the heart of a vacation destination's downtown district, Beach Haus keeps things plenty casual and friendly. The company's beers, while accomplished, place an emphasis on accessibility.

"We're very lifestyle, craft-oriented folks," Merklin said. "Not because we don't love those beers, but we're not looking to win gold medals at beer fests and things like that, per se. We want to make really nice beers that people can enjoy, and enjoy a couple of, no matter what setting they're in."

"This is a very active environment, whether folks are at the beach or shopping or whatever, even when they're dining it's a real experience. People are looking for experiences like that and we want (to be) a beer that can complement a lot of those things."

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John Merklin, owner of the Beach Haus Brewery in Belmar, in the tap room on March 20.(Photo: Bob Bielk/Staff photographer)

This laid-back attitude is evident in beers like the Station-2-Station Porter, which is incredibly drinkable for casual beer fans while still boasting a robust presence.

"Things can always change, and I'm sure we'll offer some challenges to folks in the future, but we're all about accessibility right now," Merklin said. "So we want folks who are just dabbling in craft beer to be able to enjoy something here. And I do think we make a couple of heartier beers, so even your most finicky craft beer lover is going to find something to enjoy as well."

Marching on

Beach Haus Brewery was up and running in time for Belmar's annual St. Patrick's Day parade earlier this month, and marked the occasion with the dry Irish stout they're calling Parade Day. But don't worry if the parade passed you by — Merklin tells us this beer will be on tap in the tasting room for some time to come.

"That was our thank you to the town of Belmar, and it was also our first collaboration here. It used coffee beans from Stay Gold Cafe Lounge across the street from us," he said. "This goes back way before the Freedman's purchase was even agreed. When we were first talked about the building, one of the first things we talked about was 'Hey, we're going to have a beer for the parade.'

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Some of the beers available at the Beach Haus Brewery in Belmar.(Photo: Bob Bielk/Staff photographer)

"As somebody who used to go to them back in the day and enjoyed them quite a bit, Irish stout made a lot of sense with the time of year and the holiday around it and the theme of the parade itself. And the coffee part just lent itself because we were staring at these guys across the street for the last nine months, drinking their coffee, and we decided it would be a nice thing to add to it."

Grab a growler

Now holding a series of soft launches, Merklin said the company is shooting to host a grand opening in early May. Then, the site will be open for business four to five days a week, expanding to seven days a week during the summer.

"The main purpose is it helps build our brand with folks coming in, visiting this place, having a good time, enjoying the beers, able to talk to the staff. When they go home, whether that's in Point Pleasant or in Raritan, they're going to be able to hopefully ask for our beers and spread the good will."

The Beach Haus experience doesn't have to end once you leave the tasting room. While their beer is available in bottled form, visitors to the brewery also can fill growlers on site to go.

Conveniently, downtown Belmar is home to a number of BYOB restaurants, including Stay Gold and Kaya's Kitchen, where a growler of Beach Haus can compliment a meal in local fashion.

"That's the thing about a downtown. You want as many hops as you can to be interesting to folks and for folks to keep coming back," Merklin said. "Belmar's getting to a point where you can come at least every weekend and do something different, some combination. Depending on the season, it would include the beach.

"The fact that you can access it from the rail, from (Route) 35, it's not far off from 195 or the Parkway, these are all awesome things. So yeah, we want to be a hop when folks come to Belmar or for folks already in Belmar. We definitely want to be one of those hops. And, like I said, our hop can complement another hop, or in reverse."